Novel nut and bolt task quantifies motor deficits in premanifest and manifest Huntington's Disease

Lucy M Collins, Faye Begeti, Francesca Panin, Alpar S Lazar, Travis Cruickshank, Mel Ziman, Sarah L Mason, Roger A Barker

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Abstract

BACKGROUND: We investigated the use of a simple novel nut and bolt task in premanifest and manifest Huntington's disease (HD) patients to detect and quantify motor impairments at all stages of the disease.

METHODS: Premanifest HD (n=24), manifest HD (n=27) and control (n=32) participants were asked to screw a nut onto a bolt in one direction, using three different sized bolts with their left and right hand in turn.

RESULTS: We identified some impairments at all stages of HD and in the premanifest individuals, deficits in the non-dominant hand correlated with disease burden scores.

CONCLUSION: This simple, cheap motor task was able to detect motor impairments in both premanifest and manifest HD and as such might be a useful quantifiable measure of motor function for use in clinical studies.

Original languageEnglish
JournalPLoS Currents Disasters
Volume7
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 8 Sept 2015

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